A journalist outside of j-school

…not quite like a fish out of water.

I graduated from the University of Florida 5 months ago, and it took this long to realize that while I brag that everything I know comes to me from Google Reader and Twitter, I knew a lot more when I was surrounded by other journalists.

I knew who the badass journalists were, I knew when and where the awesome conferences were and I knew where to turn for any other information I didn’t have at my fingertips.

Now I’m 1,000 miles away from that network. I don’t know anybody here, I don’t know where to look for all the things I used to know.

So my question today is, as a journalist learning to be out of school, where do I turn?

I want to know when there are good conferences or panels in the city. I want to forge relationships with other journalists. Where before I was guided by my teachers, I now have to do these things myself.

12 Comments

You are living in the center of the universe! There are a trillion networking opportunities here…I’ve got a few suggestions for you including Mediabistro.com and
nycTies. There are more, but I cant’ think of them right now. Stay tuned! ;-)

You are living in the center of the universe! There are a trillion networking opportunities here…I’ve got a few suggestions for you including Mediabistro.com and
nycTies. There are more, but I cant’ think of them right now. Stay tuned! ;-)

Can’t speak to the NYC area in particular, but I’m coming up on a year out of j-school myself and have done a pretty OK job of staying in the loop. One of my “local” papers (Seattle P-I) does a great job of sending journalists out into the community for meet-ups and I’m also all over the community blogs, which are ample over here.

I know you mentioned Google Reader and Twitter already, but do you follow the “big” journalists in your area? Do you keep up with neighborhood bloggers? (I’m guessing they’re legion in New York.)

Anyway, I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t already know, but Twitter/Facebook/Flickr/Google Reader/etc. have worked pretty well for me. They just require enough back-and-forth to keep yourself informed.

Can’t speak to the NYC area in particular, but I’m coming up on a year out of j-school myself and have done a pretty OK job of staying in the loop. One of my “local” papers (Seattle P-I) does a great job of sending journalists out into the community for meet-ups and I’m also all over the community blogs, which are ample over here.

I know you mentioned Google Reader and Twitter already, but do you follow the “big” journalists in your area? Do you keep up with neighborhood bloggers? (I’m guessing they’re legion in New York.)

Anyway, I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t already know, but Twitter/Facebook/Flickr/Google Reader/etc. have worked pretty well for me. They just require enough back-and-forth to keep yourself informed.

Well, there was one great event tonight that would have been a great opportunity to meet other like-minded journalists, at the Columbia J-School (and relatively close to where you live!) – several people twittered about it, including Erica Smith and David Cohn who were both on the panel. Wish I’d read this a couple hours ago!

Well, there was one great event tonight that would have been a great opportunity to meet other like-minded journalists, at the Columbia J-School (and relatively close to where you live!) – several people twittered about it, including Erica Smith and David Cohn who were both on the panel. Wish I’d read this a couple hours ago!